Psyched Out

A certain person who shall remain unnamed but whom I happened to marry about ten years ago told me he had a picture of me and turned his laptop around to reveal this.

A couple of FACTS are called for here.

1. Hours after I am peacefully dreaming, this unnamed person is typically still on the internet.

2. My charms and beauty would have remained entirely unknown to him if it hadn't been for someone being wrong on...well it wasn't exactly the internet as we know it.

Before the world wide web, back in the mists of time, when dinosaurs roamed the earth there were scarcely known rooms called student computer labs, exclusively in the actual computer science building. There were computers there, unlike in dorms or libraries or apartments. And those computers could link to electronic bulletin boards through an ill defined process that non-computer people did not worry their little heads about. It came to pass that the university upgraded and would actually sell the monitor, keyboard and 300 baud modem to students. Amongst all the men buying them was the occasional nubile woman taking an assembly back to her apartment. There she could read intelligent and not-so -intelligent discourse on all manner of subjects, and give her own pithy responses.

In the course of time a misguided user named Skullhacker wrote a post so mind-numbingly ignorant that one such woman could not help correcting him. When she hit enter and returned to the forum, she found a remarkably similar response to Skullhacker. "What an intelligent person!" she thought, "I must high five them!" So she did. It emerged that this intelligent person was male. And lo, he did not ask her what color her panties were. This passed for gentlemanly behavior on what would become today's internet. So she continued X messaging him when she was online. Intellectually stimulating and amusing conversations followed, and those conversations became more stimulating over time.

A day came when the pair decided a telephone conversation would be enjoyable and smoother that X messaging. And lo, the man asked the woman if she was really over eighteen in a frightened and disapproving tone, the which concern pleased the woman and helped her believe that she was not speaking to a predator. And she offered to send a copy of her driver's license before they spoke again, and the gentleman said no, that was okay. The woman and the man continued their long distance telephone conversations, and there was much rejoicing in the AT&T billing department.

Time passed, and hesitant planning for a meeting in person ensued. The man was visiting friends up north over New Year's, and the woman was house sitting in a big city a few hours away. The woman made many dampened braids in her waist length golden hair, the better to lure the man when her hair was let down into a mass of waves. And it worked. And they attempted to get it on, but the friend's refrigerator made loud banging noises and they were afraid it would wake other people up, and they did not want an audience, and besides they were nervous.

And they traveled to the big city to house sit together, and life got better until Trent the Bondage Kitty made his appearance. And the big city was FUCKING COLD with temperatures below zero and famous winds. So they had little to do besides snuggle and make an occasional shivering one block journey to Boston Chicken for sustenance. And Boston Chicken turned out to be SO ROMANTIC!tm They decided that they were fond of each other in the face of glaring evidence that they were both already head over heels in love, in an attempt to be prudent and cautious.

They returned to their now lonely homes. They wrote and called. They visited when they could afford it. The man moved back north to be about eight hours away instead of 22. The woman moved to the big city to be about three hours away instead of eight. That year he came home with her for Christmas and her mother bestowed upon him a dowry of clothing, watches and a higher baud modem. Soon the man proposed on one knee under the fireworks. The woman danced around and said yes.

And ten years later all the man can do is mock the woman playfully for obsessing over the internet.

Bastard. :)

I love you Sweetie! Thanks for reminding me how we met.